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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366650">Polished and pure and possessed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwiana/pseuds/yourbuttervoicedbeau'>yourbuttervoicedbeau (kiwiana)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Songs from the Jukebox [Prompt Fills] [42]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Schitt's Creek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M, POV Patrick Brewer, Pickles as a love language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:48:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366650</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwiana/pseuds/yourbuttervoicedbeau</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>With a grimace he lifts the top bun off the burger and sure enough, there are three offending slices of pickle in the middle of the burger. He picks them off and puts them on the side of his plate, and only after he’s returned the bun to its rightful place does he look up to see David watching him, his whole face a study in barely concealed amusement.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Brewer/David Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Songs from the Jukebox [Prompt Fills] [42]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>337</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Polished and pure and possessed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_is_not_nothing/gifts">this_is_not_nothing</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written very hastily, but I couldn’t resist TINN’s “Patrick giving David his pickles as a love language.” </p>
<p>Title is from Chumbawamba.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1"><span class="s1">For their third date, Patrick takes David to a burger joint in Elmdale. It’s a nice place, classy enough that it feels like a good date choice but without being so pretentious he feels like he should eat his burger with a knife and fork. But he’s so distracted by the way David’s foot hooks around his ankle, and his soft smile across the table at Patrick, and maybe a tiny bit by the clanging of </span> <em> <span class="s2">third date!!!</span> </em> <span class="s1"> in his head even though David seems perfectly happy taking things slow, that he forgets to ask for his usual burger modification until the food has already arrived.</span></p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Honestly, thank goodness he remembered when the plate was set down in front of him, and not after he’d already taken a bite. That would have been awful.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">With a grimace he lifts the top bun off the burger and sure enough, there are three offending slices of pickle in the middle of the burger. He picks them off and puts them on the side of his plate, and only after he’s returned the bun to its rightful place does he look up to see David watching him, his whole face a study in barely concealed amusement.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So you’re one of those people,” David says, and his tone is grave even as his lips quirk up at the corners. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Patrick raises his eyebrows. “Those people?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Mm.” David narrows his eyes, still fighting a smile. “Those people who think pickles are a crime against nature or whatever, because they have weird and unrefined palates.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s a sign of just how into David Patrick is that he finds this judgement charming instead of irritating. “Just not a fan of pickles, David,” he says lightly. “It’s not a political statement.” He picks up his burger. “You can have them, if you want,” he adds before taking a bite; it’s delicious and he closes his eyes as he chews, so it’s only after he swallows and opens his eyes again that he realises David is staring at him. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What?” He brings his hand to his mouth instinctively, wiping at it, but he doesn’t seem to have sauce all over himself or anything. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I just...” David glances down at Patrick’s plate, hesitating. “Are you sure?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“About the pickles?” Patrick is genuinely confused. “Of course. If you don’t eat them they’re not going to get eaten, so.” David still looks uncertain, and Patrick isn’t sure what to make of it. “I’ve never seen you so hesitant to accept food before,” he teases, and David‘s eyes dart back up to look at him. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I thought the whole food-sharing thing was, like, a thing that only happens in romantic comedies.” The tone is light but like so many things David says there’s something lurking underneath it, something that makes him ache. But he’s learning to ride the line between sincerity and teasing in a way that doesn’t make David uncomfortable, so instead of doing anything strange like pushing his fries across the table or suggesting they order a milkshake with two straws he just rolls his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Eat the pickles, David.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">David gives him an inscrutable look, but he picks one up off Patrick’s plate and pops it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “These are good, and you’re missing out,” he says when he swallows, and Patrick shakes his head. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m more than happy letting you have this experience on your own.”</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Patrick stops ordering his food without pickle. </span>
</p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">If David notices — or notices that Patrick has started eschewing sandwiches in favour of burgers — he doesn’t say anything, but after a while Patrick stops having to tell him to take the damn things once they’ve been peeled off and discarded from his food. It feels more significant than it probably is, this little routine of Patrick putting pickles on the side of his plate or in the lid of his takeaway container and David snatching them up before popping them in his mouth with a grin and a teasing remark about how </span> <em> <span class="s2">incorrect</span> </em> <span class="s1"> Patrick is for not liking them.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The night David flails through a rant that culminates in </span> <span class="s2"><em>boyfriend</em>,</span> <span class="s1"> they decide to grab takeout from the café before heading back to Ray’s. Patrick heads over to order while David cleans up the wine bottles, his heart so full that when he’s ordering his cheeseburger he blurts out, “extra pickles, please, Twyla.”</span></p>
<p class="p2">David notices. Of course David notices, when the discarded stack is bigger than normal, but he doesn’t say anything. The smile tucked into the corner of his mouth speaks volumes, though, and so does the way David kisses him once they’ve finished eating, all messy and grinning and frantic.</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">There’s a plate in Patrick’s hands. It has potato salad and a bread roll, and half a dozen medium-rare sliders packed as densely as he could manage with pickles. David needs time, and Patrick can respect that. But he also asked Patrick to bring him dinner and if this is the only way Patrick can make it clear just how much David is </span> <em> <span class="s2">it</span> </em> <span class="s1"> for him, then this is the method he’ll use.</span></p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">After a lip sync in the front of the store and a reconnection in the back room, David offers to go pick up dinner. Patrick watches him go, unable to keep the smile off his face both from the abject relief at their reconciliation and unabashed delight at David’s olive branch.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">David is back before too long, handing Patrick his burger before sitting down beside him with his own. When Patrick opens the box and pulls off the bun, though, he realises immediately that something is wrong.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, they messed up my order,” he says with a sigh. It feels... wrong, somehow, as though picking off the pickle and leaving it for David is somehow vital to the whole process of eating a burger. </span>
</p>
<p class="p2">David glances down at the food in his hands, and then his eyes slide away. “No they didn’t.”</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">It takes Patrick a beat before he realises what David means, and then a laugh bursts out of him before he can stop it. At David’s affronted look, he laughs harder. He’s just so </span> <span class="s2"><em>happy</em>,</span> <span class="s1"> and the words he was working up the courage to say before the disastrous barbecue — the ones he was trying to communicate with his own version of the very song they just listened to, in fact — are bubbling up inside him again.</span></p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Now’s not the right time. They need to talk, and they need to settle back in. But soon. </span>
</p>
<p class="p2">He puts down his burger and takes David’s face in his hands, leaning in to kiss him with a smile.</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“David,” he says softly when he pulls away, “next time, order the pickle.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">David looks at him for a long moment before the responding smile blooms across his face, almost like he understands what Patrick is really telling him. “Okay.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks so much for reading! Come and find me on <a href="http://yourbuttervoicedbeau.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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